Prevention: How to
Avoid Many Sicknesses
131
CHAPTER
12
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! If we all took more care to eat
well, to keep ourselves, our homes, and our villages clean, and to be sure that
our children are vaccinated, we could stop most sicknesses before they start.
In Chapter 11 we discussed eating well. In this chapter we talk about cleanliness
and vaccination.
CLEANLINESS—AND PROBLEMS
THAT COME FROM LACK OF CLEANLINESS
Cleanliness is of great importance in the prevention of many kinds of infections—
infections of the gut, the skin, the eyes, the lungs, and the whole body. Personal
cleanliness (or hygiene) and public cleanliness (or sanitation) are both important.
Many common infections of the gut are spread from one person to another
because of poor hygiene and poor sanitation. Germs and worms (or their eggs)
are passed by the thousands in the stools or feces (shit) of infected persons. These
are carried from the feces of one person to the mouth of another by dirty fingers or
contaminated food or water. Diseases that are spread or transmitted from feces-to-
mouth in this way, include:
• diarrhea and dysentery (caused by amebas and bacteria)
• intestinal worms (several types)
• hepatitis, typhoid fever, and cholera
• certain other diseases, like polio, are sometimes spread this same way
The way these infections are
transmitted can be very direct.
For example: A child who has worms
and who forgot to wash his hands after
his last bowel movement, offers his friend
a cracker. His fingers, still dirty with his
own stool, are covered with hundreds of
tiny worm eggs (so small they cannot be
seen). Some of these worm eggs stick
to the cracker. When his friend eats the
cracker, he swallows the worm eggs, too.
Soon the friend will also have worms.
His mother may say this is because he ate
sweets. But no, it is because he ate shit!